Lifelong Star Control fan with some criticism and praise.

from Stardock Forums

First, the praise:

1. Fleet Battles really does feel like Melee. I'd like to see a bit more diversity among the ships but even if you never added another ship it would still be fun.

2. I thought I was going to hate that the map doesn't loop in Fleet Battles but I think it's actually better like this since it allows slower ships to try to block off faster ones.

3. What little of the voiceover I've heard and race design I've seen I like.

4. The music is excellent.

Now, the criticism:

1. The sound effects don't have remotely the same impact that the old games' sound effects did. Hitting someone with a nuclear missile barely makes a noise. Even the lightest hits in StarCon 1,2,3 made a satisfying percussive sound. The explosion of an Ur Quan fusion blast or Chenjesu crystal hitting a ship was extremely satisfying, and there's nothing even approaching that kind of effects quality in the game right now.

2. The ships are too wobbly. They seem like they're made out of jelly sometimes. Stiffening them up I think would improve the visuals.

3. I'm extremely skeptical about the planet exploration mechanic, but we can't play with that hands-on right now so that's all I'll say.

4. The planet's gravity well seems a bit too strong. Some ships can't escape it without colliding with the planet.

 

Anyway the project looks very promising! I didn't think I'd ever get another Star Control game, let alone two of them. Thank you!

231,009 views 10 replies
Reply #1 from StarControl Forums Top

Hi Pell,

Sorry for the slow response.  Here's some thoughts on your post:

1. The sound effects don't have remotely the same impact that the old games' sound effects did. Hitting someone with a nuclear missile barely makes a noise. Even the lightest hits in StarCon 1,2,3 made a satisfying percussive sound. The explosion of an Ur Quan fusion blast or Chenjesu crystal hitting a ship was extremely satisfying, and there's nothing even approaching that kind of effects quality in the game right now.

 

2. The ships are too wobbly. They seem like they're made out of jelly sometimes. Stiffening them up I think would improve the visuals.

 

3. I'm extremely skeptical about the planet exploration mechanic, but we can't play with that hands-on right now so that's all I'll say.

 

4. The planet's gravity well seems a bit too strong. Some ships can't escape it without colliding with the planet.

Agree on the sound.  They're largely place holder.  We're slowly improving them across the board.

Agree with you on the ships. We are, "tightening up the graphics".  A lot of what is in there is based on what can be done and then dialing it back.

On the planet exploration side, this will be a challenge.  Ultimately, what we want is the exploration to be fun unto itself rather than a chore.  In the originals, the planet exploration was something you just had to do and there wasn't that much fun to be had.  This time around, we want the planet exploration to be a fun game unto itself.

That said, we plan to have ship modules you can buy so that those who don't enjoy planet exploring can get what they want from planets quicker at the expense of having ship battles be somewhat more challenging.

Agree on the gravity, this was adjusted in the most recent update.  We'd love to hear what you think.

Thanks! 

Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Instead of a gamey "ship module" you could have a "marine landing force" the player could have.  Then you "send in the marines" instead of doing the Star Trek thing of inexplicably sending all of the most important officers on the ship down too the planet, haha.

 

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from LittleTinyFrogs Forums Top

I'm not understanding you there.  

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

You said you were considering a "ship module" so that the player doesn't have to do planet exploration if they want to skip that part and focus on the adventure game, at the expense of having ship battles be more challenging.  I just meant that you should call that "ship module" something like "marine landing force" or "landing party".  It could make the ship battles more challenging by having their transport ship(s) that they use to land take up some hangar bay space.

Maybe this is what you were already thinking.  A lot of games are made by people who know nothing of military operations, so in this case they would just come up with some "module" and call it "Auto-Lander" or something like that.  It would make a lot more sense, and be better from an immersion perspective, to call it a marine landing force or landing party.  It's just a lore suggestion, really, a realistic way of explaining an "Auto-Lander" in SCO.

 

Reply #5 from StarControl Forums Top

I think it's fair to include the option of auto-scavenging, similar to the philosophy of the auto-battle option in SCII.

People who don't enjoy planet exploration could use it for getting materials, but players who bother manually landing on planets would be rewarded by being able to get better resources. So let's say a planet has on its surface what amounts to 100 RUs worth. A thorough expedition to the planet could potentially yield that. However, by using auto-scavenge, you get a random amount of materials in a specific range, say 40%-80% of the full potential.

The payoff will be often worth it for players who don't want to bother with exploration, but the ones who do will get more out of it. Same as how you could sometimes lose auto-battles that a willing/skillful player could win if they tried.

Of course, this automated action will only yield materials, so you'd still have to land for quest-related objects, etc.

Thoughts?

Reply #6 from StarControl Forums Top

I think we've discussed similar in a few other threads. I'm okay with the idea as the intent is to reduce the grind. Haven't seen how scarce or plentiful resources are yet, I would suggest this is a mid-game option.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Consider that the lander "mini-game" was a lot more fun and interesting on dangerous planets, especially before the player had the special shields. Except the lightning planets. Those were just random. But yeah, landing and gathering on planets with no hazards was pretty much just a time sink.

Reply #8 from StarControl Forums Top

The lander mini-game became obsolete once you could blast ships and get RU from their remnants, so I don't feel like it was a big detraction. In fact, the "danger element" was pretty high early on, so it was actually quite fun to try to nab the good stuff on difficult planets. The only thing I found annoying was hunting for biological life. At least with minerals you were always finding some, but with bio it was hit or miss. I'd love to be able to scan a system for biological life (if such a thing exists in SC:O) in case I was specifically searching for that over more minerals. Though honestly a system scanner that told me 1) about bio life, 2) about the general type/quantity of minerals and 3) any unusual energy readings would make the whole process much better. That way if you enter a system you can quickly check to see if it's worthwhile or crap and move on. I'm all for making the lander game more fun though, so I'll look forward to trying that out in the future.